Rolled-up
by blodwite
Summary: In which Hei is arrested by Chief Misaki Kirihara.
1. Chapter 1

Back pressed into the stiff hardness of a building, lungs searing with each quick, heavy breath. That small pain was eclipsed by the short knife that was still embedded deeply in his thigh. Hands shook uncontrollably as he grasped the handle of the blade, a strangled noise of pain slipping past his throat as he pulled the weapon from his body and flung it away from himself. Quivering hands pressed down on the bleeding wound, though at least it had missed the femoral artery.

Could still bleed to death though, he thought, a small grin pulling at his lips. Dying from a small, not poisoned knife… after all the injuries and supernatural attacks that he'd endured during his life. It was humorous, in that distant, doesn't make you laugh kind of way.

Why the contractor had been wielding a small pocket knife, Hei would never know. Wasn't like he could ask the guy now, not with his blood pooling at Hei's feet. Some of the blood belonged to Hei as well, mingling in an indistinguishable puddle of red so dark it was almost black.

Pulling a bandana from his pocket, Hei tied it around his leg. He'd take care of the wound later, once he was back at the gaijin apartment, for now he had too much to do to spare it any more attention than he'd already had.

Pushing off of the wall, Hei staggered forward, grimacing as he put his weight on his injured leg. He'd be shambling around with an undignified limp now. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Hei noted that he'd need to think of a lie to tell the police woman. He hoped she wouldn't stumble upon him as the Black Reaper while bearing wounds that would be horribly noticeable as Li Shengshun.

She already had her suspicions, that would certainly be more than condemning.

The Black Reaper kneeled by the dead contractor, shaking hands searching through pockets, seams in clothing, and even the man's waistline. Patting him down, Hei pulled out a small tube that had been holstered around the contactor's ankle.

Another reason to grimace, Hei did not particularly enjoy shoving his hands down dead man's pants.

Holding the tube up to the just breaking rays of light, he examined the liquid. Huang nor the mission files had said anything about this.

Reaching up, Hei activated the piece that rested in his ear, "Huang, Mao, I've found something odd."

A dry chuckle could be heard, an unsettling noise right in one's ear. Not that his porcelain mask gave away his emotions, in the rare event that he wore them on his face.

"When isn't this job odd?" Huang's deep, gritty voice asked over the headpiece.

Hei ignored him, slowly climbing to his feet and slipping the vial into a pouch on his belt so that he couldn't loose it unless someone took it out of the pouch.

"Someone's found me," Hei spoke softly, the soft sound of his wire being readied could be heard on the other side of the communication device.

"A contractor?"

"Section 4, the police woman."

"She must be following your star," Mao's voice joined the conversation.

Giving one of his knives a swing by the wire attached to the hilt once before catching it, Hei turned slightly to his right, watching Misaki Kirihara as the woman aimed her fire arm at him.

"Put your hands up and freeze!"

Rather than listen, Hei flung his knife at the building behind him, blade sinking deeply into the wall. He could hear Misaki yelling at him, but he was too busy trying not to scream as he painfully hobbled-ran toward the edge of the building as fast as he could.

The sudden searing pain in his left shoulder almost drove him to his knees, instead Hei let the momentum carry him headfirst off of the ledge of the building.

Gloved hands gripping onto the wire, Hei hoped that the knife would hold as he held his injured hand on the release for the wire at his belt.

Ah, it hurt like hell.

Reaching the ground without sustaining further injuries, Hei yanked on his wire with his good arm, letting it draw itself back into his belt. Just as the hilt of his knife met the palm of his hand, more bullets rained down from above, accompanying more shouts from Chief Kirihara.

Launching himself to the side, Hei rolled in attempt to dodge more lead, stumbling on his leg. Running was not an easy choice right now, and Huang was not close enough to collect him right away.

Spinning on his good leg, Hei flung the wire up the building so that it latched around Misaki's neck. Thankfully it was merely two stories, and not anything taller.

Rather than pull her down to her death, Hei was just about to activate enough of his power to knock her unconscious when the press of the barrel of a gun against his back made him freeze.

"Freeze!" A male voice commands as several other police officers circle around, weapons aimed.

Hei froze.

He then released Kirihara as next commanded by the man holding a gun to him.

The police chief rubbed at her neck, and reassured the person who held the gun on him, Saitou apparently, that she was indeed alright, before spinning on her heels and disappearing. No doubt running down here so that she could finally see who was under the mask.

Mao's voice on the ear piece caught his attention.

After several moments of silence Huang called his name.

Around him the police officers fidgeted nervously.

Hei swayed a little on his feet, suddenly dizzy. Ah, the wound on his shoulder was bleeding profusely. Blood dripped all the way down his right hand, dripping off his middle finger in fat red drops. Absently, Hei wondered if it was a graze or if the bullet was still lodged in his body.

The officers around him, jumped a little at his movement. Saitou jabbed the gun into his ribs, snarling at him not to move.

Huang yelled his name again.

Hei could see Misaki out of the corner of his eye as she approached, the mask didn't impede his vision of course.

"I'm rolled-up," Hei said quietly, knowing that Huang, Mao, and Yin could hear him. A string of curses from Huang's line, while Yin quietly said his name. Mao was silent.

The device in his left ear shrieked as the others on his team destroyed their pieces. Hei was unable to stop himself from flinching from the pain, his ear now ringing.

Saitou heard the code, and jabbed his gun into the contractor's ribs again, "shut up!" The cop snarled. Hei did not have to be told twice.

Misaki Kirihara stepped into view, her face shining with excitement, with hair ruffled, pieces sticking up from her ponytail. She's been waiting for this for a while now, Hei guessed.

"Keep your weapons on him," Kirihara ordered as she strode forward, a strange syringe in her hand rather than a gun.

What was this?

Hei considered activating his power as the police chief took his arm, inserting the needle into the vein in the crock of his elbow. Really he was dizzy, bleeding, in no shape to maneuver away from poorly trained police officers with bad aim. If he hadn't just had a knife jabbed into his leg…

Whatever she had just put in his veins made him even dizzier. Squeezing his eyes shut, Hei groaned, trying not to throw up.

He barely noticed when his earpiece was removed, and cuffs were tightened around his wrists. Hands were fumbling at his waist, removing the belt that held a lot of his equipment. More hands patted down his chest, and his legs, pulling the knives and extra wires from various places on his person.

His beloved coat was removed, as was his harness.

Finally, slim fingers brushed the edge of his face, prying off the cold piece of ceramic that hid him from the world.

A gasp filled the nervous silence as the face of the Reaper was finally revealed.

"Li!"

Was the last thing Hei was conscious of as he suddenly fell forward, unable to hold himself up anymore. The bang of a gun and hot, searing pain followed him into unconsciousness.


	2. Chapter 2

The annoying, repetitive beeping was the first thing to break through the haze, accompanied by the quieter humming of other machines. Equipment of some sort… Hei struggled to open his eyes, to move, to do anything other than float numbly in the empty darkness. He couldn't do anything.

Slowly, with more effort than logically required, Hei forced his eyelids to open. Only to smash them shut again at the blinding, white light that accosted his unused retinas. Strange how something as mundane as light could cause so much pain, considering the state his body should be in. He remembered a knife wound to his leg, a bullet in his shoulder… there should be another bullet wound somewhere else, though that location was uncertain.

His entire body was numb, filled to the brim with an uncomfortable tingling. Like insects were trapped inside him, running about on the other side of his skin.

It was uncomfortable to say the least.

Breathing hurt, an oddly comforting fact. Each pull of air into his lungs sent a dull, throbbing pain through his chest. Though his breath wasn't raspy, slightly labored perhaps, but there was no danger of his lungs filling with blood. He assumed, rather he hoped.

Concentrating, Hei found that he could in fact move, just that each movement caused hot tendrils of pain to run through his nerves. Even moving his fingers on his right hand irritated his wounded shoulder. Really his entire body just ached.

Laying deathly still seemed far more difficult to do than it had ever been before in his life. Now that each movement hurt all he wanted to do was leap to his feet. Understandable in a strange place, with enemies all around, though not advisable.

Hei forced that feeling to the back of his mind, taking a deep, painfully shuddering breath. He forced himself to peel his eyes open, blinking rapidly to adjust to the bright light. His vision came into focus much slower than usual, blurs sluggishly consolidating into images that made sense.

It appeared that he was… in a hospital.

Not a high security lab that would be able to secure him should he bother to attempt to escape, but a… regular, civilian hospital.

Why was he here? Surely they knew that they couldn't contain him here? It was far from properly equipped to deal with a contractor. Civilian doctors would be sure to notice if whoever had him now did anything to try to get answers out of him. This was far from standard procedure when dealing with a captured contractor, this was far from even nonstandard precautions.

He should be in a room, deep underground somewhere, or hell, even in a lab close to the gate to be studied by PANDORA. There was no logical reason for him to be here.

It was a normal hospital room, granted it was windowless and closed off, obviously meant to be able to be guarded. Meant for normal criminals, not highly skilled, infamous assassins with supernatural abilities.

There were only two guards in the room with him. Faces with which he was very well acquainted.

Foreign Affairs Section 4, Misaki Kirihara and… the one young cop whose name Hei didn't believe that he'd ever heard before. Or, if he had heard it, hadn't bothered to remember.

They had noticed that he was awake, long before he had been able to see them standing there. The young cop had his gun trained on Hei, obviously uncomfortable in this situation. Though Hei was restrained to the bed he lay on, not to mention in too much pain to move much more than his eyeballs and wiggle his fingers. Even that caused a dull ache to spread lazily up his arm.

What had they done to him? It felt like he'd been drugged, this was too much pain to be caused by his injuries. The only thing he could think of was that strange syringe that Kirihara had injected him with.

He stared at them, face as blank as one would expect from a contractor.

Kirihara moved forward, stopping just out of reach of the bed, and leaving her nervous subordinate standing over by the door. She had left her gun in its holster, meaning she was either confident that she could draw it before he could do anything, or that he wouldn't even be able to do anything.

Unfortunately, Hei knew that it was the latter. As pathetic as it was the Black Reaper was unarmed and unable to do anything while guarded in a hospital by a pair of regular cops armed with standard issue guns.

His eyes flicked to the police chief, noting by her expression that she seemed to be expecting him to say something. He just watched her, waiting for her to give in and be the first to speak. He didn't have to wait long.

"You've been injected with a drug that inhibits the use of your ability," Kirihara began, steel strong in her voice, "though, it has some nasty side effects. Should you try to activate your ability, you'll have a seizure."

That would explain her ease with being close to him if nothing else. He'd never heard of this drug before, hadn't even heard rumors. Nothing he could think of ever overhearing hinted to this… anti-contractor drug.

It could be a bluff. Not that it was one that he wanted to test at the moment. He was in enough pain as it was.

She shifted her stance, pulling the strange tube with the brown liquid that he had recovered from that contractor earlier out of her pocket, "what is this?" she asked, tone clipped and eyes hard.

Eyes shifted to the vial. She handled it without gloves, without any precaution. This wasn't something she cared about, nor something that she considered as evidence. What was she doing then? He couldn't think of any reason for her to even be here. Chief Kirihara did not have the clearance to interrogate a contractor, even if she was the one who had brought him in. If whoever intervened with the police force was feeling generous they might let her watch, but behind a window or through a recording.

The only way this situation was possible would be if she hadn't reported his capture, or someone wanted something from him and was using her to get it. Though potentially, it could be her that they wanted something from…

Too many possibilities, and too many open ends to think through. He'd need answers to some questions before he could even begin to think about what was going on. There was also the fact that his head was swimming… the drug had really messed him up. None of this would be easy without being able to think straight.

"I don't know…" Hei found himself answering her, voice thick and raspy.

Kirihara got an odd expression on her face, "what do you mean you don't know? You were sent after it, right?"

A pause before he answered her this time, "it wasn't mentioned in the mission files."

For a long moment Kirihara just stared at him, an unreadable, dark look in her eyes.

Finally, she spoke again, "who do you work for?"

The obligatory question. Surely the police woman who had spent so much time tracking down the elusive BK-201 when it wasn't her job to do so would have more interesting questions than this? Especially since he had spent a considerable amount of time with her as Li.

Still, Hei found himself answering her, "the Syndicate."

"The Syndicate?" Kirihara frowned, "what, exactly, is the Syndicate?"

She didn't know. All of her brilliant police work, her strange comradeship with the MI6 presence in Japan, her strange obsession with catching BK-201, and she still didn't know. Not that he was surprised that she didn't know, most of the world didn't know that they were a puppet of the Syndicate. Even Hei was allowing himself to be a tool, anything for even a hint of what happened to Bai.

He stared at her blankly.

"Right, can't expect you to be overly cooperative, can I?"

"Exactly."

The police chief sent a glare his way for that, Hei guessed that it had meant to be a rhetorical question.

Turning away from him, Kirihara regarded the other officer in the room, "Kouno, would you mind finding us some food?"

Kouno seemed quite offended at the question, "and leave you alone with him?" he asked, gesturing with his gun at Hei rather violently.

"Yes," Kirihara replied, deadpan.

For a moment, no one moved. Hei watched the somewhat tense scene with a blank expression from his viewpoint on the hospital bed.

Heaving a sigh, Kouno gave up, flicking the safety on his gun and holstering it. He turned to leave, pausing right before the door to look back at the chief.

"Burgers, right?"

"Of course."

They stared at each other for a very long minute after the door had been shut behind Kouno.

Kirihara heaved a sigh before asking, "Li, were you ordered to watch me?"


End file.
